BREAKING: Dracula Has Fallen Down The Stairs At The Met Gala

— Arthur Miller, The Crucible

I've spent a life chasing stories to tell when I'm old

"...anyone who really knows mankind might say that there is not one single living human being who does not despair a little, who does not secretly harbour an unrest, an inner strife, a disharmony, an anxiety about an unknown something or a something he dare not even try to know, an anxiety about some possibility in existence or an anxiety about himself..."

⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺

𝙄’𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙬,

𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙬𝙚𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚

𝙄 𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙢𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙮 𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮.

𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙄 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙢𝙮𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙙𝙞𝙯𝙯𝙮,

♡ xoxo-Suzy ♡

⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺

5 years he's been in hiding.

5 miserable years he's had to go by a different name, wear different clothes and tell a different story to everyone he meets. He's been James, Frank, he thinks he even went by Dustin at one point. He's had long hair, short hair, he's been bald. He had a beard for a while and taught music in a small music store, but he shaved it off after a week because all he saw in the mirror was Wayne, his uncle, his family, the man he abandoned.

For 5 years, he's been everyone but Eddie Munson.

The government told him he couldn't be Eddie anymore.

"Eddie Munson is dead." They told him; they even had the death certificate to prove it. "Don't come back to Hawkins. Keep moving. There are still people looking for you." Was the last thing they said to him before dropping him off with a wad of cash in some town he's never been to before.

He'd asked for the date at the front desk of a motel, and they'd told him April 20th. Eddie had crumbled down to his knees and cried, he'd cried so hard the motel clerk asked if she should call someone, asked if he was alright.

"I'm fine." Was his broken reply. He'd taken the key for his room, curled up on the uncomfortable bed, and didn’t move for days. He wasn't alright. He'd been in a government hospital for what he thought was a few days but was actually over a month and then released into the world like some rehabilitated animal. He didn't get to say goodbye to anyone. Fuck, he didn't even know if they all made it out of the upside down. All he knew was that he was alone. And that he couldn't go home. Ever.

He'd eventually gotten over himself and made some kind of life for himself.

It took him a few tries to find something that stuck, something that felt sort of like himself. Every few months, an ungodly amount of money appears in his bank account. The formal bank statement says it's from an estranged relative. Eddie knows it's not. He knows it's the government's way of buying his silence. His expensive rent and struggle to find a job is the only reason he doesn't send it all back to them.

He's lived in his current place for a year now, which is a new record for him, but he's got no friends. Well, he has acquaintances, people he can laugh with every now and then and go out for drinks with, but no one who knows him. No one who knows why he wakes every night screaming, no one who understands why he flinches when the lights in the bar flicker, why he hates the sound of people cracking their knuckles and why his hands shake whenever anyone mentions the scar on his face.

It's late at night when he's covered in sweat and his throat is raw from screaming awake from a nightmare, that he really misses his friends, his family, the people that he went through hell with. He's not allowed to call them, not allowed to send them letters or visit. He's not even allowed to know how Wayne is doing. It hurts. It hurts so much. He can't even look at himself in the mirror anymore because he's aged, and he's slowly starting to look more and more like his uncle.

But his friends are a little harder to escape, it's like parts of them have found him and are trying to haunt him, trying to remind him that he can't be a part of their lives.

Just last week, he walked by a book store and saw a brand new fantasy graphic novel on display in the window, 'written by Mike Wheeler & illustrated by Will Byers' was displayed on the bottom of the cover in gold letters. He's never bought a book so fast in his life. He's read it front to back 3 times already.

He can't even watch the news in peace because they were doing a news story about a small town basketball player who's made it to the big leagues and is winning everyone's hearts with his skills and bright personality. Eddie had cried and wished he'd been there to congratulate Lucas, wished he could have been there to tell him how proud he was.

Even Nancy is haunting him. Her news articles get delivered to his front door every day in the paper and most of the time the articles aren't even sad, but he cries at his small dining table alone, his breakfast cold and his coffee filled with his tears.

He misses his friends. He misses them so much and it's eating him alive. It feels like he's lying on the ground of the upside down all over again, tiny little mouths ripping away at his flesh except this time it's happening from the inside. Each time he's reminded how far away he is from his friends, a small piece of him is eaten away.

He doesn't know how much more he can take.

And then something odd happens. He gets a postcard and it's addressed to him, the real him; Eddie Munson.

The handwriting is hard to read and some words have been crossed out but the name signed at the bottom of the card pulls a sob from Eddie's throat and has him almost crumbling on his doorstep.

I'm sorry I took so long. I'll see you soon.

From Steve Harrington.

Got any tips for writing romantic slowburn fics?

Hello! I’ve done my research and I have plenty.

How To Write Slow Burn Romance

Firstly, here’s some helpful links to other tumblr posts and websites (where I got most of my information). They go more in depth than I will here. For the tumblr posts, I recommend having a scroll through the notes for extra tips.

Other helpful links:

Advice for writing slowburn romance [the960writers]

How to write slowburn [givethispromptatry]

Tips / prompts for writing slowburn [creativepromptsforwriting]

The art of writing slowburn romance

Here are the main points I gathered:

Slowburns don’t start with love/attraction at first sight. The attraction builds up throughout the story.

There are many tropes that apply to slowburn; Friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, having to overcome something internal, having to overcome something external, etc.

To borrow a quote from @the960writers , “That’s why most romance stories have an exciting sideplot. It gives the characters a background to act against and it gives the writer time to develop the chemistry between the characters”

Your characters need believable chemistry, otherwise the reader has no reason to route for them.

At the same time, your characters need a reason to not get together right away. Otherwise, there’s no reason for the burning to be so slow. A few reasons for the characters to not get together right away include denial, societal taboo and them already being n a relationship.

When it comes to the characters starting to like each other, show don’t tell. It’s okay to occasionally have the characters go “Oh no! I’m developing feelings for B!” but for the most part, we shouldn’t be directly told that the characters are falling for each other. We should see them be nicer to each other, spending more time together, subtly flirting and showing other signs of attraction. It makes the relationship feel more real.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you want me to add more advice.

Leave requests for other oneliners and prompts!

I just want to be loved, but I don't want to input the burden of my existence onto someone's life when they could be happier without me.

Dear [Redacted],  

I honestly don’t know how to start this, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be quite long. Hope you don’t mind. 

Not a single day goes by that you don’t occupy my mind; thoughts of what we had and how if i’d done some things differently we might have had longer together. I genuinely believe that with you, it was the right person, wrong time, wrong place. In college I couldn’t love you the way you deserved, and now I can, but I spend most of my time on the other side of the country, and we barely talk. 

I constantly find myself daydreaming about getting you your favourite flowers, and holding your hand, and kissing you. God, how I wish I would’ve had the confidence to kiss you. I should’ve done it. I wanted to so badly. The day you lay in my arms and almost fell asleep as I was playing with your hair? I wish I’d tilted your head up and asked if I could kiss you. I wonder if things would be different if I’d have had the courage. 

Northampton has a performing arts degree. Well it’s called “Acting for stage and screen” but it’s basically performing arts. And there’s a theatre literally not even a five minute walk from my current accommodation. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve imagined you coming here and us being together and being able to pursue our dreams in the same space. Little coffee dates where I read novels and you memorise scripts. The sun shining through your hair in the spring and summer. Honestly you must be so so blessed by whatever almighty force there is to be so beautiful, and for that beauty to only be enhanced even more when you’re in the sun. 

It’s funny to think about how a few months ago I would have let you kill me. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean that if you had a knife in your hand, I’d bare my neck on instinct. I would sit obediently with your shotgun to my skull. I wouldn’t even bring up my hands to stop blows to my ribs. I would let you dismember me. Skin me alive. Bite until the skin tore. Touch me in my sleep. It makes me feel so meek but then I remember I love like a dog. Beautiful and wretched as that may be. 

And I did love you. I might still do. I tried to move on, but nothing’s felt the same since. It’s like as soon as we broke up, you took half of my soul with you, leaving what was left to wither up and die. A bit dramatic but it’s true. 

If you asked anything of me, I’d come running. I should’ve done that the entire time, but I didn’t. 

It’s been about a year and a half since we broke up. Your birthday isn’t in my calendar anymore. It feels like a piece of me is missing. 

That time in your living room at your birthday party when we held hands properly for the first time, with your arm wrapped around me and me leaning on your shoulder. As soon as your skin touched mine, I knew it was over for me. I was entirely yours. Now, I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I was your servant. If you starved I would’ve fed you, if you were sick I would’ve tended to you. I would have crawled at your feet. I would have, if I had been braver and loved you the way I wanted to. Before your love I was debased. For you alone I was, and am, weak. 

I never did tell you how proud I am of you. The night I got to see you on stage, I was utterly speechless. Perfect doesn’t even begin to describe how you were. As soon as you stepped on that stage, I couldn’t take my eyes off you, even if you weren’t the main person performing. And when you went off again all I could think of was when I would see you next. I should’ve held you afterwards, kissed the side of your head and told you how proud I am of you. You put in so much hard work for it, all while being sick and not knowing what was wrong, and you did incredibly. That whole night the only thing that was going through my head was how much I loved you. But I never told you.

Before the show started as well, when people were getting ready. I was talking to one of the then second years, and you came by, obviously distressed and anxious. I should’ve ended my conversation right then and gone to you, holding you and telling you that everything would be okay and that you would do amazing. But I didn’t. I just watched you out of the corner of my eyes. Even then I knew I was making the wrong decision. I still regret it.  

I dream about taking you on a picnic. A flower field or an apple orchard or a grassy meadow in summer. But I don’t know of any near either of us so I’ll have to stick to my imagination. No-one around so we can truly be ourselves, the sun shining on us as I fed you grapes. Or whatever your favourite fruit is. I’ve forgotten. The sun shining through your hair, making you glow. Your eyes bright with happiness. I think it would be perfect. I hope you would agree. 

Honestly I only want for one thing now, even though I know it’s probably impossible. 

I want you to want me as I want you. Desperately. I want to make you shiver from my touch. I want to hear your voice, breathless and shaky. I want you to say my name like a prayer. Full of devotion. I want to bind together our bodies, intertwine our bones. I want you to devour me. To watch you strip off all layers of my being and digest every single piece. 

But I ruined the chances of that happening too soon. 

If I’m ever brave enough to give you this and you do read it, I hope you don’t think I’m weird lol. I hope you realise that you still own half of my soul, and that there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about you and what we had, and how I should’ve treated you. I regret so much and I just wish I had a chance to love you the way you deserve and to show you how amazing you are. 

There’s so so so much more I want to say but I can’t find the words. 

You’ve always had that effect on me, making me speechless. 

You’re incredible. 

Love, yours

The Queer Symbolism of Dead Poets Society

that’s right y’all i actually did it. tw/cw for mentions of Neil’s death, homophobia, reclaiming queer

Dead Poets Society; a beloved, slightly problematic staple of dark academic films. Since its release in 1989, it has gained a strong following over the years, and even more speculation. Fans of the film have long believed that the central characters, Todd and Neil, were in love. Furthermore, there are theories that not only were the main characters lovers, but major plotlines and themes possess metaphors of queerness. Debate has been made over the reality of these theories, and it’s pretty believable. This essay has no intention to change any thoughts on the matter, more like reading into the content and considering what the general opinion is. 

Anyone who has seen the movie or even read a brief summary should be aware of the major theme of the story; tradition versus nonconformity. Mr. Keating made a point to challenge tradition, which, considering the patriarchal, conservative setting, was quite risky. It’s almost like queer people have been challenging tradition for centuries. ‘Tradition,’ or heteronormativity, against the ‘nonconventional’ is instead celebrated. The Dead Poets Society was all about defiance from societal norms and living authentically, in other words not having to hide.

“We all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are your own, unique, even though others may think them odd or unpopular. Even though the herd may go ‘that’s bad.’” - Keating

Deviating from tradition not only takes form in the Dead Poets Society being revived, but in the confrontation of supposed gender roles. A deep passion for theatre is connected with homosexuals and has roots in queer culture since at least the early 20th century, from the author’s knowledge. The group had taken a keen interest in poetry, as well being long associated with femininity or homosexuality, by reasons of toxic masculinity. With harmful intentions or not, poetry is still a staple of queer culture. Infamous queer poets like Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, and Walt Whitman have been influential in their works since the sixth century. Walt Whitman specifically is mentioned many times in this film. One of his more well-known poems, “Oh Captain, My Captain” is referenced various times. Out of all the poems to choose, why go with the poem written by a hypothesized gay man about a president who also may have been gay? To add to this, during the scene in which Todd chases Neil around while the latter reads his poetry, Neil has the gall to say “I’m being chased by Walt Whitman.” As if that scene wasn’t already one of their more emotionally charged moments that lead to this essay’s creation.

That is not where the references to queer culture stops. During the audience’s first introduction to English teacher John Keating, he is whistling the tune of ‘1812 Overture,’ composed by notoriously homosexual composer Tchaikovsky. In the cave, Charlie Dalton recites a line from Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 18,’ famously written about a feminine man, recognizable from the line: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” That sonnet created much skepticism over Shakespeare’s sexuality and some consider him to have been queer.

The thing with queer people indulging in these interests are both fine points in the queer identity and culture, as well as stereotypes against queer people in that aspect. What a fun time.

The symbolism and references are not the only evidence of this being a queer movie. There are the characters themselves. Most frequently discussed, is the case of Neil and Todd. Although Todd is new to the school and riddled with anxiety, he ends up quite close to Neil. Did it help that they were roommates? Certainly, but there is quite a bit more to it than that. Neil had developed the habit of being in Todd’s space quickly, and Todd got rather comfortable with Neil by the time the play auditions rolled around. Even more, Neil is very frequently seen looking at Todd in a way that friends don’t typically do. When Todd performed the improvised poem for the class, it had cut to Neil, looking positively enamored at Todd. The aforementioned Walt Whitman reference to Todd is to be taken into consideration as well. Todd’s reaction to Neil’s death too made quite the difference. It is normal to mourn for a lost friend, but was there a reason to show Todd in such a state of despair? Charlie had known Neil much longer, yet all seen in the final film, Todd showed the most aggravated grief. Yes, in the original script, Charlie had had a grieving moment, but why keep Todd’s? It might have been for character development, or it could have been much, much more personal.

Because of the fandom’s hope for canonical queer characters, former cast member Gale Hansen has graciously supplied some answers via Twitter on several occasions. He has said that he ships Todd and Neil and confirmed that Charlie could’ve been portrayed as nonbinary. 

Besides the many references, metaphors, and instances of symbolism, there is still one more area that needs to be covered; the relation between the Dead Poets Society and being a queer person. Considering a very queer individual is writing this, this part may get a little long and personal. Throughout the film, Neil feels the worst pressure to conform to the life his father wants for him and struggles with it immensely. He feels hopeless and drained from every short conversation with his father, and it did end up killing him slowly. He despaired over who he was. He knew what he was, he enjoyed who he was, but faced criticism over being himself. Neil’s father hated the parts of Neil he couldn’t control and suppressed his son’s identity. Seeing Neil on stage was a turning part in the movie, as if Mr. Perry is seeing his son for the first time how he really is. He wasn’t hiding, he was out. 

Yes, it is quite true that people just couldn’t live if their passion was taken away for a bleak existence. That could’ve been the case for Neil. Or, as this whole thing is about finding how this film mirrors queerness, he could not live knowing that he would be despised by his own father. It might just be the queer existence at it’s saddest state, but it certainly is understandable. 

Taking in all of the reasons why this movie could be a piece of inexplicably queer media, there is just the fact that it might not be. It’s subjective some look at it and think ‘yeah, they are definitely gay’ whereas someone else might not look at it that way. This essay was just a way of proving some points, really. I analyzed the content based on my own view and took my thoughts into account. Keating did say that the reader’s opinion is one that matters.